The Adventures of Jimmie Dale eBook

“I got to have it!” he declared, with
sudden fierceness. “I got to—­see!
Look at me! I ain’t goin’ to be no
good to-night if I don’t. I tell youse,
I got to! I ain’t goin’ to t’row
youse down, Slimmy—­honest, I ain’t!
Just one—­an’ it’ll set me up.
If I don’t get none I’ll be on de rocks
before mornin’! Dat’s straight, Slimmy—­ask
Mag, she knows.”

“Aw, let him go get it!” broke in the
Tocsin wearily. “Dat’s de best t’ing
youse can do, Slimmy—­dey’re all alike
when dey gets in his class.”

“Youse cocaine sniffers gives me de pip!”
snorted the Magpie, in disgust. He dug down into
his pocket, produced a bill, and flung it across the
table to Larry the Bat. “Well, dere youse
are; but youse can take it from me, Larry, dat if
youse gets whiffed”—­he swore threateningly—­“I’ll
crack every bone in yer face! Get me?”

“Slimmy,” said Larry the Bat fervently,
grabbing at the bill with a hungry hand, “youse
can count on me. I’ll be up dere on de job
before youse are. Three o’clock, eh?
Well, so long, Slimmy”—­he slouched
eagerly to the door. “So long, Mag”—­he
paused on the threshold for a single, quick-flung,
significant glance. “See youse on de avenoo,
Mag—­I’ll be up dere before youse are.
So long!”

“Oh, so long!” said the Tocsin contemptuously.

And, an instant later, Jimmie Dale closed the outer
door behind him.

CHAPTER XII

JOHN JOHANSSON—­FOUR-TWO-EIGHT

Nearly midnight already! It was even later than
he had thought. Larry the Bat pressed his face
against a shop’s windowpane on the Bowery for
a glance at a clock that had caught his eye on the
wall within. Nearly midnight!

He slouched on again hurriedly, still debating in
his mind, as he had been debating it all the way from
the Tocsin’s, the question of returning again
to the Sanctuary. So far, the way both to Spider
Jack’s and the Sanctuary had been in the same
direction—­but the Sanctuary was on the
next street.

Jimmie Dale reached the corner—­and hesitated.
It was strange how strong was the intuition upon him
to-night that bade him go on and make all speed to
Spider Jack’s—­while equally strong
was the cold, stubborn logic that bade him go first
to the Sanctuary. There were things that he needed
there that would probably be absolutely essential to
him before the night was out, things without which
he might be so badly handicapped as to invite failure
from the start; and yet—­it was already midnight!

Ostensibly both Makoff and Spider Jack closed their
places at eleven. But that might mean anything—­depending
upon their own respective inclinations, or on what
of their own peculiar brand of deviltry might be afoot.
If they were still about, still in evidence, he was
still too early, midnight though it was; though, on
the other hand, if the coast was clear, he could ill
afford to lose a moment of the time between now and
the hour that the Magpie had planned for the robbery
of Henry LaSalle, for it would not be an easy matter,
even once inside Spider Jack’s, to find that
package—­since it was Spider’s open
boast that things committed to his care were where
the police, or any one else, might as well whistle
and suck their thumbs as try to find them!